Soin the end it took one mighty Rajput to call out a Rajput bully. Call it serendipity, an astral configuration, or plain caste fealty, a striking feature of the violence unleashed by the Karni Sena over north India and parts of the west after the release of Padmaavat was its near absence in four states that are ruled by the BJP’s Rajput chief ministers. If the militia raised its voice in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, it was stifled.

Yogi Adityanath, Trivendra Singh Rawat, Jai Ram Thakur and Raman Singh, respectively the chief ministers of the four aforementioned states, either had the last laugh or pretended as though nothing was amiss as their colleagues Vasundhara Raje, Manohar Lal Khattar, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vijay Rupani threw their hands up heavenward when the Karni Sena battered and pummelled their states.

Vasundhara, Khattar, Chouhan and Rupani are not Rajputs, although each presides over a terrain where Rajput voters are considerable. Chouhan and Vasundhara claim a Rajput association, Chouhan by dint of his surname and Vasundhara by virtue of her royal pedigree. By now, the people of Madhya Pradesh know that Chouhan is from the Kirar backward caste and was a beneficiary of the BJP’s “social engineering” agenda that fostered backward-caste leaders like him, Kalyan Singh and Narendra Modi in the post-Mandal era.

Vasundhara is a Maratha of Maharashtrian provenance, married to a Jat. The saffron-robed, sharp-focussed UP CM was the first to leverage to his advantage the rah-rah notices he attracted in sections of the media after he “snubbed” Karni Sena chief Lokendra Singh Kalvi. Last week, when Kalvi petitioned Adityanath to proscribe Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s opus, the CM told him the Karni Sena was at liberty to protest “peacefully”, but if there was even a hint of trouble, his cops would turn on the heat. Kalvi backed off.

The spin put on Adityanath’s ‘defiance’ was that he wished to reinforce his image as a tough administrator before the investors arrive for the first investment summit he is hosting, in February in Lucknow. If the Karni Sena’s fanatics set afire the state capital – or UP’s business hub, Noida – the CM’s pet project, which he has been working on for months, could go for a toss.

He is hawking UP’s supposed return to “normalcy” in the management of law and order following five years of the Samajwadi Party’s “goonda raj”, and flaunting it as a badge. However, certain statistics repudiate Adityanath’s claim. In the first 100 days of his rule beginning March 2017, 10 heinous crimes were reported, including four targeted murders of Muslims, some allegedly done by activists of his own Hindu Yuva Vahini.

Between January and October 2017, 3,000 rapes were reported compared to 2,376 during the same period in 2016. Adityanath’s cops have been flaunting the 1,200 “encounters” staged between March 2017 and January 2018 as “proof” of his resolve to get on top of law and order, although most of the victims were apparently small-time criminals, with rewards of Rs 1,000-2,000 on their heads.

The correlation between the Karni Sena’s selective belligerence and a particular CM’s caste is more than just identity bonding. In Adityanath’s dispensation, the Rajputs, who form six per cent of UP’s population (three per cent less than the Brahmins) have begun to enjoy a disproportionate share of the power pie, like the Yadavs did in the Samajwadi government and the Jatavs in Mayawati’s dispensation.

He has packed the police stations with Rajputs and ensured that the directorgeneral of police is from the community. Indeed, the DGP’s appointment after the incumbent Sulkhan Singh retired had become a source of dispute between the Centre and the UP government. Adityanath wanted a Rajput, OP Singh, who was on deputation with the Centre; the Centre rooted for a Brahmin. After a month-long impasse, Adityanath got OP Singh.

With the inordinately huge patronage Adityanath has lavished on his kinsmen, it is unlikely that the Karni Sena’s militancy could have taken off in UP. The state’s Rajputs are feeling so pampered that a challenge to the CM would jeopardise the agent provocateur —and not the intended target. Pretty much the same situation prevails in Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Himachal.

Amidst the Padmaavat turmoil, Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh left to shop for investments in Australia. The most the Karni Sena or its caste clones did in these states was to “appeal” to their CMs to stop the film’s screening; they didn’t oblige. Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to go along with the ebb and flow of the primeval instincts unleashed by identity politics. Can a backwardcaste leader stand up to Rajput bellicosity? It was a test Modi failed. A junior minister of his, VK Singh, a former Army general and suave as they come, warned that freedom of expression didn’t grant alicence to “tamper” with “history”. Nobody put Singh down because the BJP needs the Rajput votes, and they are spectacularly whimsical.

Recent Messages ()

Please rate before posting your Review

OR PROCEED WITHOUT REGISTRATION

Share on Twitter

SIGN IN WITH

Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive. Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.